


Tony Stark's On-Call Hotel Detective Agency

by The Little MerBucky (blue_pointer)



Series: Sing, Sing, Sing [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angry Steve Rogers, Arguing, Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark - Freeform, Bucky's Recovery, Bucky's therapy, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Confident Tony Stark, Friendship, Insecure Steve Rogers, Jealous Steve Rogers, M/M, Possessive Steve Rogers, Stark Spangled Soldier - Freeform, Stark Spangled Winter - Freeform, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Steve needs help, Stony - Freeform, Stucky - Freeform, Superhusbands (Marvel), Tony Stark is watching you, friday - Freeform, nat is awesome, starkbucks - Freeform, stonucky - Freeform, stuckony - Freeform, suspected winterwidow, winterironshield - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9231440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/pseuds/The%20Little%20MerBucky
Summary: In a universe where Zemo failed to break up the Avengers at the end of Civil War, Bucky moves into Avengers Tower to start the long road to recovery. When Nat joins Bucky's therapy team, Steve gets paranoid and loses what little chill he has. And when Steve's angry as a mofo, there's only one person he turns to.This series takes place in theKick Drum Heartuniverse.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this backtracks a tad into events mentioned in Boom Boom Pow because someone asked for a closer look at Tony's counseling of Steve when he was freaking out.

It was the most innocent thing: all Steve had wanted was a glass of milk. That’s all. He wasn’t eavesdropping. Nat and Bucky weren’t speaking a language he knew anyway. It was kind of inconvenient. For eavesdropping. Which he wasn’t doing. He just honestly wanted a glass of milk.

He was fine when they were speaking Russian. Steve had learned Russian. No problem. But there were all these other communist languages… Steve could catch a word here and there, but-- anyway, it didn’t matter. Because he wasn’t eavesdropping. Nope.

But on his way to the kitchen that day, everything changed. Nat and Bucky had gotten to where they’d sit pretty close to each other. Keep their voices low. Like they were discussing secrets. Only Tony had assured him they weren’t. He said they’d talk about really simple things, like trees or snow or Prague as seen from the black tower.

So it was fine that they were sitting so close. Totally fine. Steve didn’t even know they were doing it, because he wasn’t spying on them, and he wasn’t eavesdropping. He just wanted some milk.

But something nagged at him as he crossed the room. Something he thought he’d seen from the corner of his eye. No. No, he must have been mistaken. Steve turned his head a little.

Nope. Not mistaken.

He stopped. Stood frozen in place, a potential minefield of emotions and overreactions. And...he really needed to start moving again before they noticed and thought he was spying on them.

What Steve really needed was to yell. And when he needed to yell, there was only one person he turned to. One person who seemed specially built to take all the shouting and arguing, all the sass he had inside.

 

*

 

Tony wasn’t sure how you slammed a door to an open garage, but somehow, Cap managed. He could feel the waves of anger rolling across the cement floor, and though it moved him on a sexual level, he was in no hurry to slide out from underneath the Audi he was working on.

“Tony!” Alright, Cap was bellowing. That meant it was serious. He quickly ticked through the small list of 20 or 30 things the first Avenger might have found out about that could have made him blow his top like this.

He peered out from underneath the car to find his semi-estranged superhusband leaning against the wall, breathing hard. That was about as emotional as Cap ever got in front of him. And if he was being this open, Tony sure as hell wasn’t going to be avoidant. “You rang?” he called softly from his vantage point at ankle-level.

“They were holding hands!” He gestured, arms out, like Tony’s Italian grandmother complaining that the butcher had raised prices again. “Holding hands! I can’t-- What’m I supposed to do with that?!”

It looked like it was time for Tony to take things in hand. So he rolled out from under the car and sat up. “Okay, slow down there, handsome. Who’s holding hands?”

Ridiculously, Cap took a couple of steps closer, as though he were trying to convey a secret after having yelled through the whole garage a minute earlier. “Bucky and...Nat.” The way he said Romanov’s name--the verbal equivalent of scruffing a puppy that has just soiled the carpet--was a sure indicator of his displeasure. Tony worked hard not to make a thousand comments that came to mind about double agents and backstabbing.

“Okay, so spill. When did this happen? I’m sensing a backstory.”

“They’re doin’ it right now!” And there he was, gesticulating again. He’d never seen Cap so out of control. It was curiously stimulating. In more ways than one.

Then Tony processed what he’d just said. “Wait, right here? Upstairs?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, sugar, just calm down. Let’s take a closer look at the evidence.” He walked to the nearest keyboard and turned on the feed from the cameras in the main common area. There was Romanov and their Bucky bear, sitting in a somewhat intimate arrangement of chairs, talking quietly. He turned up the audio. “Friday, throw us up some subtitles for what they’re saying.” He could feel more than see Cap move up behind him, Steve’s attention focused on the screens. Tony tried not to be jealous of his own tech.

 _“Raindrops,”_ Romanov was saying. _“Like little ticks of a clock. Hours slipping away gently, one drip at a time.”_

“What language is that?” Cap asked. He had permissions to demand answers from Friday when Tony was present.

“Shanghainese.”

“So what is that?” Cap wanted to know. “Poetry?” He had clearly assumed the worst.

“You know,” Tony pretended to dial up settings of this or that on the keyboard. Really he was just fidgeting. “You never got jealous like this about anyone **I** was talking to.”

“Seriously, Tony?” Cap was not amused.

“I’m just saying, someone less secure in themselves, who maybe wasn’t one of the smartest and sexiest men on the planet might think you loved him more. Or something.”

“This thing you do--I don’t have the patience for it anymore, Tony. You know who _does_ have the patience for it? These mind-games you like to play, this needy ego-stroking? This guy right here.” He pointed at Bucky on the screen. “Who’s about to leave us for Nat.”

Tony blinked at that interesting, if wildly paranoid, conclusion. “What makes you say that?”

“They’re holding. Hands!” Steve repeated, in a tone as irate as he’d ever been in Tony’s experience. Which was very.

“So if I hold your hand, does that mean you’re leaving your old pal for me?”

“I’m not in the mood for joking, Tony!” The muscles in his jaw were jumping like mad. It was slightly mesmerizing.

“Okay, okay. Here. Look at this.” Tony made the camera zoom in on their hands. Cap was right, they were certainly touching. Bucky’s arm was just slightly extended, and where his hand lay, Romanov had slid her hand forward so that just her fingers covered his.

“ _You_ look at it!” Cap started to pace, inordinately upset by the image alone.

“Okay, but apply your brilliant tactical mind to the situation.” _Temper, temper, sweetheart_. “Look at _how_ they’re holding hands. What do you see?”

 _“How did you measure time?”_ Romanov was asking their boyfriend.

Cap stopped and turned back around. “I see...a man and a woman holding hands!” He started to whirl away again.

“Alright, hold on there, Tiger. Does it look like they’re about to jump in the sack?”

Cap scowled at him in the fiercest way, as if Tony had made it a possibility just by saying it out loud. “No!”

“Alright, so work with me. Extrapolate a little bit. It’s not an intimate holding of the hands.” He had to clasp his own to keep from reaching for Cap’s. “Would you agree?”

Steve’s hand landed on his shoulder, sending a thrill through Tony. He was getting on board. Hopefully physically as well as mentally. Only time would tell, but he could hope. “Agree.”

“So what does the gesture remind you of, sunshine? In what context would you expect to see this kind of hand-holding?” Oh, he was leaning closer. Tony willed his toes not to curl inside his Christian Louboutins.

“I dunno,” he said. “A funeral?”

“Not exactly flagpole-raising, is it?”

“Tony!”

“Oh come on, Miss Manners. You know exactly what I mean. He’s not getting ready to take the skin-boat to Tuna Town just yet.” Cap was covering his eyes in that ‘utterly humiliated by you, Stark’ way. He had so many sensibilities. Tony wanted to peel back the layers with his teeth, one by one.

“But why?” He still sounded so frustrated. Tony could think of a way or two to get him to relax, but he sensed those methods might be a little premature just now.

“Why is Romanov, who never touches anyone but Clint-- outside of performing acts of violence--covering our sweet Buckaroo’s fingers with her spinnerets?”

Cap seemed to need a moment to process Tony’s metaphor. “Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well some help you are!”

“You know I always try my best for you, blondie.” Tony was half-turned now, the movement taking him inches from that sculpted chest. Cap was wearing one of his size-too-small running shirts, and he could see the outlines of that drool-worthy physique. “You’re not seriously worried he’s gonna leave all--” he made a gesture that took in the rolling hills of Cap’s abs, his slender hips, and muscular thighs, and...other things… “--this. For a stunning redhead, are you?”

“He’d be leavin’ you, too,” Cap felt the need to point out, as though that were going to get Tony more invested, somehow hurt his feelings.

“Oh, trust me. He’s not leaving this.” Their metal-armed friend was about as addicted to Tony’s behind as he’d ever known anyone to be. More. To the point he figured he could give Cap a run for his money if it ever came down to it. Which it never would. But he doubted Cap knew that.

It came as a complete surprise when a strong arm wrapped around Tony’s waist and jerked their bodies close. “What makes you so sure of that?” From the stubborn jut of his jaw, poor thing still thought they were arguing.

Tony slid his hands slowly down that hard body, trying not to shiver. “Because I guess this guy’s got something you don’t have. Imagine that, Tony Stark’s got something Howard’s golden boy doesn’t.”

“What’s that?” Steve growled in a way that made Tony weak in the knees.

“Well, I’m more than happy to show you, if you’re feeling a little adventurous.” Really all Cap needed was some ego stroking to get over this little fit of jealousy. And Tony was more than ready to go a few rounds with just the two of them. It had been far too long.

Then suddenly Cap was leaning his forehead on his shoulder, forlorn, and the mood fizzled like a leaky balloon. “I can’t lose him again.”

Tony was terrible at this whole comfort thing. That was Bucky’s department. He patted Cap awkwardly. “There there. Come on, now, he’d be crazy to leave two guys as devastatingly handsome as we are. You know it.”

“I just don’t know, Tony…” He was sounding more like Eeyore by the second.

“Well, lucky for you, I do.” Lucky for him, Tony never slept and had every corner of the Tower on 24 hour surveillance. “Take a seat, and I’ll prove it to you.”

There was a lost little boy in the blue eyes that looked up at him, and Tony couldn’t not kiss him. Seeing Cap at a loss was kind of terrifying. He needed to do something about it. Fix it. “Tony, I didn’t come down here for--”

“Right. Of course. Take a seat.” His feelings weren’t hurt that Cap was rebuffing his advances. He was focused on his pal and buddy, after all. How could Tony ever hope to compete? Tony took his time setting up the feed, adjusting for times when the room was empty, waiting for Friday to add in translations.

“Hey.” Tony glanced around in surprise. Cap jerked his head in his old nonverbal ‘come here’ gesture. Was he actually inviting him to curl up in his lap? Tony didn’t wait for him to change his mind.

“Poor lamb,” Tony soothed. “Don’t you worry. We’ll figure this all out before they switch to the next language. You’ll see you were being paranoid for nothing.”

Cap slid muscular arms around him, gently squeezing. He was still glum as a raincloud. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I am.” Tony patted his hand reassuringly, snuggling back. “Tony Stark is always right.”


End file.
